A Beautiful Woman
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Introduction
Introduction
Frightening driver’s ed stories.
If you ever break down at night, don’t shine your light at approaching cars.
It’s true…our bodies follow our eyes.
Which makes it important for us to pay attention to where our eyes look.
This is what we learn from Samson - to pay attention to what we are setting our eyes upon.
Beware The Eyes!
Beware The Eyes!
vv. 1-3
Samson journeys to the city of the oppressors. Went looking?
He sees a girl and notice the response: “Now get her for me as my wife!”
His justification? “She is right in my eyes.” Not right as in just or correct…
Pleasing. Smooth.
I see her and I want her. This animal instinct in Samson.
Samson is acting little better than a dog.
Squirrel, food, people, toy… see it and chase it.
We set our eyes on the things that we want, that please us, and then it alters our direction.
37 Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things; and give me life in your ways.
Are you controlling your eyes?
You are more than an animal!
Beware The Despair!
Beware The Despair!
v. 4
Excursion - Did God make Samson disobedient?
God knows and uses our weaknesses.
He doesn’t cause them. He doesn’t excuse them. He doesn’t desire them.
He will accomplish His purpose, but better through our obedience than our disobedience.
Just proves that God is often up to more than what we can see.
Beware The Temptations!
Beware The Temptations!
vv. 5-7
Vineyard - grapes - nazirite.
How close can I get without getting burned.
Camp fire / melted boots.
How close can I get to temptation without it turning into sin.
“How far is too far?” Common youth group question.
Wrong question!
How much can I be like Jesus?
We see the opposite of that here: the Spirit and still rebellion.
Beware The Pride!
Beware The Pride!
vv. 8-18
Spiritual pride:
Samson returns to the dead lion, and scoops honey out of it.
He shows a willingness to get a little bit of sweet from the dead.
Gross, but also, breaking another part of his nazirite vow. Then passes along being ritually unclean to his parents.
How desperate are you to dig a little pleasure from that which is dead?
Stop snuggling with temptation.
Steven Tyler: “Sleeping with the dogs and you wake up with the fleas.”
But, Samson thought he was too big, too strong to be taken down by anything or anyone.
Intellectual pride:
30 companions…probably to keep an eye on him.
Riddle that they’d have no way of guessing.
So, they threaten Samson’s wife (v. 15).
Seems extreme, but clothing in their culture. Expensive gift.
So she nags him for several days until he relents.
Their response is given in the form of a riddle…and Samson responds:
“If you had not plowed with my heifer, you would not have found out my riddle.”
The point of the riddle, not just a derogatory term for her, but the inappropriate way she was treated.
Not very nice! But, that’s the level of commitment he had to his wife.
The eye creates a weak bond.
Samson already creating chaos and disaster.
His parents would have paid for the seven day feast.
Beware The Spotlight!
Beware The Spotlight!
vv. 19-20
To pay off his debt, he goes and kills thirty men and takes their clothes.
And his fame grows.
He goes and pouts at his parents’ house while his wife is given to another.
He is well known but he is not well. Often confused.
Don’t confuse celebrity with catastrophe.
Some people just want to watch a building burn.
Much of reality TV. Much of social media.
Part of why I watch what is happening on the political stage.
But, just because you are well known, doesn’t mean you are well.
Beware the price of fame.
Conclusion
Conclusion
Amanda Reilly sentenced in May 2022 for five years after defrauding hundreds of people for over $100,000.
Family, friends, and her church in California. Celebrities were duped.
For seven years, starting October 2012, she blogged about her journey with cancer. Young mom in her 20’s.
Often taking up offerings at her church, celebrities donating signed memorabilia at fund raisers.
People giving her money for medications. Donating flights to fly her from California to New York for treatments.
Tickets to sporting events, concerts, broadway shows.
Until she was busted.
What would make someone do this?
Well, this wasn’t the first time.
In 2010, a friend told her about a man in their community who had brain cancer and people had donated thousands to him.
Two days later Amanda called that same friend and told her she’d just found out she also had brain cancer.
She saw all that money and decided she would do whatever was necessary to get her own pile of cash.
She followed her eyes and traded in her family, friends, reputation, and her integrity, her very life to attain some money.
Don’t trade a lifetime of purpose for what you see today.
Don’t trade the eternal for the temporal.